3D Archive: The Iwo Jima Memorial

The Story:On the morning of February 23, 1945, after four long days in fighting the battle of Iwo Jima, five Marines and a Navy medical specialist raised a large American flag atop Mount Suribachi. This significant moment in American history was captured in the iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, which inspired the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial.

The sculptor Dr. Felix W. de Weldon, who was on duty with the U.S. Navy at the time, was so inspired by the photograph that he quickly sculpted a scale model from clay. At the same time the country was falling in love with the photograph and the US senate was calling for a national monument modeled after the photo.

de Weldon worked with hundreds of artisans for eight years to create a 32 foot high model from molding plaster that would take three years to cast in bronze. The three surviving members of the flag raising posed for the sculptor as he created large scale models in clay. The three members who perished in later phases of the Iwo Jima battle were sculpted from photographs.

The massive bronze parts, comprising the world's tallest bronze statue at the time, were trucked from the foundry in Brooklyn, NY to Washington, DC where the sculpture would be installed outside the Arlington National Cemetery. After installation above a granite base, the memorial stands 78 ft tall including the 60 foot flagpole. It was dedicated on the 179th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps by President Eisenhower.return to full slide show

The Challenge:Direct Dimensions was given the task of 3D Laser Scanning the 78 foot tall Memorial on-site, from the ground, to create a digital replica that could be used for archiving, conservation, restoration and reproduction.return to full slide showThe Solution:

3D scan the memorial from the ground using medium and long-range spherical scanners